Congress close to Ex-Im Bank deal

House leaders showed increased confidence Tuesday of a deal soon on renewing the Export-Import Bank charter, with most attention on a three-year framework raising the exposure cap to between $130 billion and $140 billion.

In recent days the White House has provided new detail forecasting the bank’s lending needs into 2015. While the administration won’t get everything it wants, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has moved substantially from the much tighter caps he had proposed earlier this spring.

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“My sense is we want to get this done,” Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters of his own negotiations with Cantor. When POLITICO asked Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) later if an Ex-Im bill agreement would be reached, his one word answer was “Sure.”

Boeing Co. and Delta Air Lines are still anxious, caught up in their own corporate brawl over language in the draft bill that could impact the bank’s future financing for passenger aircraft sales overseas. But an April 19th White House letter has helped clear the air at least regarding how much exposure Ex-Im will need if it is to manage the demands for new financing.

“Frankly, the more we sell, hooray for us, we are exporting goods, the more the cost will be,” Hoyer said. Indeed, the revised White House estimates suggest that through fiscal 2015, the bank’s needs could reach $159 billion—$18 billion more than had been predicted a year ago.

The short term changes can be as important. By the end of fiscal 2012 this September 30, the bank’s exposure could be as high as $117 billion, well above its current $100 billion cap but also above the additional $10 billion stepped-increase proposed by the Senate Banking Committee.

In the talks now, getting some short-term leeway may be as important as the 2014 and 2015 caps. And for this reason, it’s possible to see a deal shaping around a bill running through fiscal 2014 and raising the cap to between $130 billion – the Senate proposed level—and the revised White House forecast of $143 billion.

Hoyer steered clear of providing any details but indicated he and Cantor are “pretty close” to an agreement, and Republicans also said that their hope is to have legislation in place to be taken up by the House when it returns May 7 from next week’s recess.

While you're clamoring on about corporate welfare, the Japanese, Russians, Chinese, Koreans, and Saudi's are supporting their corporations with similarly styled ex-im banks. On the other hand, all the recipients of support in all of those listed countries also work to develop their home countries. American firms claw at American people to extract profits, change the political landscape to benefit themselves ignoring societal detriment, and fail to focus in any regard on hiring americans.

This "corporate welfare" is required due to the current state of global economy, where it is Nation v. Nation not firm v. firm. American companies are going out into the world to compete without government support and are losing the firm v. Nation battle around the world. On the other hand, perhaps taxpayers would be more inclined to help US companies if they showed SOME interest in supporting Americans.

Americans' relationship with Corporations is broken. Whats worse is Americans happen to work for, lead and control these same companies.

Republicans in the House are only against spending on Americans who are experiencing economic hardship. To the House Republicans, jobless Americans standing in line to apply for a job opening are the cause of the recession and budget deficits.

Either they are lawyers who never sat in an economics class during college and studied the last depression or they are from families who never expeienced a layoff. These guys are a bunch of jerks that need to be voted out of office.

But my concern is the " grease " that some in Congress will extract : case in point : Cantor's friends and family, investment bankers, and others around Congress and K Street , making sure with the Ex-IM Bank CEO and others around that some " grease " gets to them, and the same about many other "patriotic leaders" and their advisers and lawyers .... let's not forget that this 112 Congress is the most incompetent and corrupt ever.